


lonely ♡s club

by modernpatroclus



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/F, I mean come on, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 19:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7120282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Next time you need an outlet, come to me. I’ll take you shopping, not beat the shit out of you.”</p><p>“Andrew doesn’t usually beat me. I was distracted this morning.”</p><p> </p><p>Renee realizes she’s tired of being set up with gay boys.<br/>Allison realizes that she’s ready to move on from Seth when she sees Renee after her latest sparring session with Andrew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lonely ♡s club

**Author's Note:**

> it physically pains me that nora doesn't see the potential in this ship  
>  ~~aka throw me in the trash where I belong~~

Allison shouldn’t be surprised to see a black eye and split lip on Renee’s face only three hours after they’d arrived back at Palmetto from the airport together.

She shouldn’t be surprised, and she isn’t. She _is_ angry, though.

“Next time you need an outlet, come to me. I’ll take you shopping, not beat the shit out of you.” Allison says this without looking at Renee’s bruises. Instead, she’s putting her agitated energy to use, storming around their dorm room and angrily unpacking.

Renee has been mostly quiet during Allison’s storm, but now she interjects with an infuriatingly calm rebuttal. “Andrew doesn’t usually beat me. I was distracted this morning.”

“By what?” Allison snaps, because anger is the only way she knows to cope with anything that isn’t joy brought on by her friends, booze, or a scandal.

But Renee shakes her head, a silent refusal to let Allison in by closing the door on the words.

“Fine, don’t tell me,” she snaps again, though she’s not really mad at Renee for keeping her silence. She’s frustrated with herself because she doesn’t know how to help, when Renee had been the one to somehow _know_ what Allison needed after Seth died. When Allison needed space, Renee knew to keep everyone away without being told. When Allison needed physical comfort, Renee was always nearby with gentle fingers through hair and soft words only Allison could hear.

Now, Renee needs something. Allison doesn’t know _what_ that something is, or _how_ to be the one to give it to her. It’s driving her insane.

So, for lack of anything more helpful, Allison stalks over to the nearly-empty fridge in her monochrome platform sandals, yanks out a bag of random frozen vegetables Kevin made them keep in there, and stalks back over to Renee who has been perched on the arm of the couch the entire time, quietly observing Alllison’s fury.

Allison grabs Renee’s arms and firmly, but not roughly, guides Renee until she’s sitting on the actual cushions. Renee lets her situate them both, Allison cross-legged and facing Renee, without protest, _knowing_ Allison needs to feel useful. She lets Allison gently press the frozen bag to her swollen eye, and Allison wants to kill the crazy midget bastard when she sees Renee stiffen to hold back a wince.

“I thought that Andrew was territorial over his people, but there are times when you give him a run for his money,” Renee comments.

Allison huffs a humorless laugh. “I may be materialistic, but I know the real value of relationships, too.”

Renee’s voice is strange – well, stranger than normal for her – when she says, “I know.”

Allison moves her stare from the cut on Renee’s lip she’d been intensely studying to meet Renee’s eyes, but Renee looks down at her lap and fiddles with her cross. Allison narrows her eyes but doesn’t press Renee.

“Whatever. I’m still gonna kick Minyard Twin Number One’s ass when I see him later.”

“I don’t think that would accomplish anything,” Renee predictably responds.

Allison rolls her eyes. “Yeah, and why is that? Just because he’s been even more on-edge since Baltimore,” this time they both hold back a wince, “doesn’t mean he can use you as a punching bag whenever he wants. We’re all still dealing with what happened, and I don’t appreciate–”

But before Allison can finish her rant, Renee cuts in with a calm, “I went to him this time.”

Allison isn’t exactly shocked, but she is somewhat surprised. If Renee had been distracted, normally she wouldn’t go at it with Andrew of her own volition. But this time, whatever she’s been dealing with was enough to make Renee seek – refuge? an outlet? – in controlled violence.

Allison raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow and gently taps the pad of her thumb against the unbruised skin next to Renee’s eye. “I thought you didn’t like to fight through your problems anymore,” she says, but it’s more an observation than something to be answered.

She already knows she’s right; Renee had told Allison and Dan and Matt once that, while she does take comfort in the familiar adrenaline of a fight, she doesn’t do it for the sake of fighting anymore, like she had when she was younger. Now, it’s more for Andrew’s sake, and to ensure that she still has an outlet for days she feels particularly less pious. But never just for the thrill of it anymore.

Allison has never understood the appeal to sparring as a coping mechanism. She loves the fast-paced aggression of Exy, and will let herself get caught up in brawls when someone starts one with her or one of her closer teammates. And after learning that Seth’s death was likely a set-up, Allison had thrown herself into the games post-hoc with particular vigor.

But sparring and knife fights with Andrew? Those weren’t Allison’s go-tos for stress relief. (Shopping, on the other hand…)

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Allison coming down from the fury she’d worked herself into, Renee alternating between watching her and fiddling with her cross.

Eventually, the vegetables lose their effectiveness as an icepack, so Renee puts her hand over Allison’s and gently lowers the bag, and both their hands, from her face. Allison leans in to see if Renee’s eye looks any better, and Renee stays perfectly still under her gaze.

They stay like that, Allison coolly inspecting, Renee neither uncool nor her normal composed self, not meeting Allison’s gaze, until the door to the dorm opens and Dan’s voice yells out a, “I’m back, bitches!”

Allison and Renee both pull back like they’ve been caught in a much more intimate moment than Allison thinks is actually warranted – her and Seth had been seen in far more compromising, and actually physical, positions than her and Renee had just been in.

Nonetheless, she takes a minute to smooth down her hair and school her expression. Renee had turned to face Dan when she’d come in, so Allison misses the barely-there blush on her porcelain cheeks. By the time she turns, nothing is amiss and Renee is smiling up at Dan, already moving to hug her.

Allison, blasé as ever, joins her two best friends in the reunion, and silently vows to get Renee alone later.

* * *

Later, when Dan asks if Allison and Renee want to join her and Matt for dinner at a diner down the street, Allison declines for both of them. “No, Renee and I are gonna stay in and order takeout. We’ve got some catching up to do,” she explains, straight-faced, then adds with a smirk, “like you and Matthew, I’m sure.”

When Dan leaves them alone in the dorm, Allison rounds on Renee.

“Why have you been acting so weird around me?” Allison’s plan to go into this conversation with cool indifference crumbles as she automatically adopts a defensive tone, complete with her hands on her hips.

“I’m sorry, I had hoped I wasn’t being as obvious as I thought. It really isn’t–” Renee starts.

But Allison stalks up to her and cuts her off with a manicured finger pointed in Renee’s face. “If you finish that sentence with ‘you,’ Walker, we are going to have a bigger problem. This feels like a damn breakup – and I’ve been through enough to recognize them from both sides. Don’t,” she says, jabbing her finger dangerously close to Renee’s face, “give me anymore bullshit. Isn’t there something in the Bible about lying?”

Renee nods, slow, placating. “I’m not trying to act differently around you, Allison. But I know that I have. I apologize. It’s just…” She trails off, an edge of uncertainty in her voice. If Renee hadn’t been acting differently since they’d met up in the airport that morning, Allison probably wouldn’t have believed it for what it was right away.

Because this was _Renee,_ and Renee always had her emotions in check. And she never sounded nervous about people; it was only for things like her performances in school or in the goal that Allison can recall ever hearing it from Renee.

Except for now.

Renee toys with the hem of her dress, indecision and uncertainty warring on her face.

Before she can decide, the whole day pieces itself together in Allison’s head: Renee having a distracted sparring session with Andrew as soon as they’d come back from the airport, her silence at Allison’s question of _why_ she’d been so distracted, the tension in the air between them when Allison leaned in to study Renee’s face.

Reality versus the desire showing on her face right now.

Allison sucks in a breath at the realization. She doesn’t even take a minute to process it, or her own feelings – which she’s had tamped down for years, between being with Seth and grieving Seth’s death – before she pulls Renee to her by the front of her dress, crashing their lips together.

Renee relaxes into the kiss immediately, because it hadn’t been a question of if Renee wanted it; it had been a question, to Renee, if Allison had.

Allison doesn’t bite Renee’s lip, afraid to irritate the raw cut there, but Renee makes up for it by sucking Allison’s bottom lip into her own. It’s as fierce as Allison has ever seen Renee, save for with the asshole who’d grabbed Allison during the riot and bruising her arms a few months back, and it leaves Allison with an invigorating kind of rush.

They’re both breathless when they pull back, but neither backs up so much as an inch. Allison leans her forehead against Renee’s and runs a hand slowly over Renee’s mouth, catching her bottom lip and gently touching the cut there, before letting it slip away and touching her own swollen lips.

“I suppose that answers your question,” Renee says after a minute, still a little out of breath.

Allison can only shake her head and ask, “What question?” her thoughts still on the kiss, lagging behind Renee’s.

“Why I’ve been strange around you,” Renee replies.

“Oh, that.” She smirks and recovers her thoughts. “Yeah, well, lots of people are attracted to me. I wouldn’t have thought twice if you had told me and you were anyone else.”

Renee quirks an eyebrow. “And because it’s me?”

Allison laughs. “I think you just got that answer.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is the first (mostly) non-angsty thing I've finished for this fandom


End file.
